Despite all the rhetoric about email replacing social media, the two channels actually have a lot in common. In fact, social media can’t survive without email and email is gaining new life because of the growth of social media. The goal is to use each of these channels to compliment, not compete, with the other so you can maximize the effectiveness of your entire program.
The 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report revealed some key characteristics of social media that have a remarkable resemblance to email. Let’s examine some of those qualities to see how closely the two are aligned and understand how you can maximize their unique benefits.
| Goal/Benefit | Social Media | |
|---|---|---|
| Increase Exposure (85%) | Use social media to get in front of a potentially wide (or extremely targeted) audience of people actively looking to discover interesting content and ideas. | Use email to communicate directly to recipients who have opted-in to receive your messages and are therefore expecting to receive them on a regular basis. |
| Increase Traffic (69% | Drive high click through rates from social networking sites using great content as a catalyst to build engagement. | Drive clicks and conversions via email by delivering relevant content that contains a strong call to action.Link this content to subscriber preferences and activity to increase email effectiveness.Use transactional messages to encourage ongoing activity and include social links to bring a sense of community to the subscriber.Provide special offers and information exclusive to email subscribers and provide ongoing value. |
| Generating Leads (58%) | Drive connections to dedicated landing pages so you can track its effectiveness.Use personal profiles to deliver and solicit information from your target audience in the form of an informal conversation.Respond readily to questions and create a sales channel for customers to connect directly with your products, services and sales people. | |
| Developing Loyal Fans (58%) | Use social media to rally a large group of people around your organization through a common thread or idea.Provide exclusive content and offers to further spur growth and engagement. | |
| Reduced Marketing Expenses (46%) | Both social and email are affordable forms of marketing that yield high conversion and engagement rates. Spend your time wisely developing a strategy suited to each channel to maximize both hard and soft costs. | |
| Improving Sales (40%) | Use the appropriate tools to track social media,email activity and response rates. Both channels have the unique ability to provide you with instant data so you can fail fast and duplicate processes that work. | |
The post How Social Media and Email Can Co-Exist for Maximum Impact appeared first on SendGrid's Email Deliverability Blog.
